Week 10: Electronic World

You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”

- George Bernard Shaw.

George Bernard Shaw put it very aptly. The “why not?” attitude ensures that all of us are be open to new ideas; only when we adopt this attitude can experimentation and innovation take place. Most people tend to take on a myopic view of things – especially in Singapore, where lower education system does not promote people to be creative. Students are taught to give textbook answers when asked a question. Although this system is undergoing change and students are encouraged to be creative and think out of the box, Singaporeans are still not responding to this change fast enough.

There were several technologies introduced in class; some of which were familiar and some unfamiliar. The first was one I had not heard of before and I found very interesting – plastic electronics. In the future, plastic electronics will be flexible, such that bendable e-books will be possible. The future of plastic electronics is very bright. It can be used in many aspects of life. Scientists are even dreaming of putting plastic chips in contact lenses to bring the internet to the individual. This is extremely interesting as it will allow internet to be highly accessible to people, at anytime of the day, anywhere and everywhere (as long as the infrastructure is there).

Another technology – this time one I had heard of prior to class – was augmented reality. Augmented reality makes use of virtual images captured to project them in real-time. One of the ideas of how augmentation can be used in the future is about glasses in the future. In the future, information can be displayed on spectacles; so whatever information the user needs can be seen by the user on the surface of his spectacles. This concept has probably been out more than a decade ago. It was used in movies like Robocop and The Terminator, where information about people or enemies could be seen by both Robocop and the Terminator. This form of technology will also make information much more accessible to people.

 “Innovation distinguishes the leader from the follower.”

- Steve Jobs

This session was different from others we’ve had so far. Prof brought a guest to sit in for class. It was from the quote above that discussion arose from a question he’d asked: Does this apply to politics too? I feel that innovative leadership can be applied to every sphere of life. It can be easily mistaken that it is exclusive to the marketplace. This could be because there are tangible products and measures by which innovation can be gauged and measured. On the other hand, in the political scene, leaders may propose new policies and strategies which people will not choose to comply to and therefore may be not be perceived as innovation. Furthermore, benefits may be in the long term and not immediate, thus people may not apply innovative leadership to politics.

Personal rating: 8/10

Week 9: Do you have (enough) energy?

Over the last decade, the world’s rapidly diminishing oil reserves has been an increasingly hot topic. Crude oil is a scarce, finite resource and it is currently the most efficient source of energy when combusted. In the current global situation where industrialisation is growing quickly and consumers are becoming more affluent, many processes require fuel. For example, industrialisation consumes huge amounts of fuel for production. Increasing affluence means that more people can afford cars today, therefore more fuel is now being consumed. As a whole, global consumption has been rising exponentially the last few years. As such, there is a fast growing need to find newer and efficient energy sources as a substitute for oil.

The need for sustainability also serves as a driver of energy change, to find other sources of energy to replace oil. For example, Brazil has made use of sugarcane to get ethanol to be used as fuel. Alcohol is also being used as fuel to power some cars these days.

People are also becoming more concerned about the effects global warming has on the earth. The combustion of oil releases products. Whether the combustion process is complete or incomplete, the products released (complete combustion: carbon dioxide; incomplete combustion: carbon dioxide and carbon soot) contribute to global warming. Therefore, people are looking for alternative energy sources which are more “clean” and less harmful to the environment.

One interesting thing I learnt in class this week was the different potential sources of energy – from above and below the ground. Most of these energy sources are sun-derived, such as coal and lignite. In fact, all the energy sources – sun, wind, water, biomass, waves, coal, lignite, oil, gas, geothermal and uranium – are sun-derived with the exception of uranium which is also known as nuclear energy. This was interesting because before this week, only solar energy was sun-derived to me.

Solar energy has been around for many years. However, humans have not fully utilised energy from the sun. We have not discovered a way to collect all the solar power from the sun. it is said that the amount of energy received by the earth from the sun in 1hour is more than humans use in 1year. If we are able to make solar energy cheaper and improve technology such that we do not “waste” any solar energy, it would serve as a very good substitute for crude oil. In fact, Germany has embarked into this fairly new industry by being the world’s biggest investor of solar energy despite the country experiencing much less sunlight time than other countries. Desertec has come up with a concept to cover deserts with solar panels to try capturing as much solar energy as possible. Producing solar power is viewed as a huge potential market and the world needs to start making use of the “free” energy we are getting from the sun. The biggest advantage of energy from the sun as opposed to oil is that everyone gets more or less the same amount of energy from the sun, it just depends how much we can capture. But supply of oil is dependent on oil-producing countries and they can choose to control prices and mark up the price. Therefore, in the long run, solar power, or even other sources like wind energy, would be cheaper as the investment is a sunk cost at the start when the equipment is set up, but not a variable cost like oil.

Personal rating: 8/10

Week 7: Biobusiness and Agriculture

One of the earlier discussions in class was of whether the world would be able to sustain itself in the future. The common consensus was that there is very little chance of that happening with the present level of consumption. If the world continues to consume resources at the same rate as it does now, I doubt the world has enough resources to support the world’s population. It is said that if everyone is carnivorous, the earth can support 10 billion people; whereas if everyone is vegetarian and herbivorous, the earth can support up to 30 billion people. There is less strain on resources if people are vegetarian.

Being sustainable may not be as hard as we think. It doesn’t require the latest technology or complicated methods. Since young, whether we know it or not, ways to sustaining the environment has been drilled in us in the form of the three Rs – Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. By applying these three Rs in our daily lives, we’ll do a great deal in helping to conserve the earth. The forestry and lumber industry has also become sustainable. In the past, lumberjacks would chop down trees and just leave the forest as it is. However, nowadays, the industry takes an extra effort to replant trees to ensure that trees are being replenished at the same rate as it is being felled.

We also discussed the definition of biotechnology. It is not a wild guess or trial and error to get the final product that is unknown. Biotechnology is about picking and pin-pointing the exact strands/strains from two different species and putting them together to achieve the desired outcome. I remember watching a video about how cows are made lean by having cows with a particular defect gene mate with each other, so the defect will be more dominant in their offspring. This gene is supposed to help the cow regulate its muscle growth. When this gene is defective in the cow, muscle growth is not regulated and they are able to get an extremely muscular cow. Only cows with the biggest and most muscle are allowed to mate. An artificial vagina is used to collect the bull’s semen when mating. Scientists then pick out the sperms which can help them achieve the desired result.

The class was rounded up with three presentations. At the end of Yu Han’s presentation, she asked a question: Do third-world countries need GM crops? I believe that the green revolution and the introduction of GM crops was indeed a blessing. It gave consumers variety and sufficient food to ensure that people are fed (at least in richer countries). It allowed farmers to have a steady flow of income as crops were no longer seasonal. They could plant a particular vegetable even when the “season” was over. Now farmers are not necessarily poor farmers. Imagine what GM crops can do for third-world, developing countries if they are used responsibly. Yes, third-world countries need GM crops if the government or other external bodies do not use it as an avenue to cheat farmers and people in these countries of their job and food. It also depends on the population whether they regard providing for their own sustenance as more important, or attaining money so they can provide for themselves in the future.

Personal rating: 8/10